Post-Traumatic Jim Fischer

    Jim Fischer started going crazy, as many veterans did, sometime after returning from the Vietnam War.
    In other words, Jim had become a cliché. 
    To elaborate on the cliché, it should be mentioned, Jim went crazy without having experienced any of the significant wartime traumas that so affected his comrades.  He never saw a second of combat.  He never even saw a human casualty of the war.  What he had seen, in his six months of “service,” was how an M60 machine gun could blow apart a wild boar.  His squad commander had mistaken it for a Viet-Cong. 
    His squad commander was high on cocaine. 
    Jim was high on marijuana. 
    Everyone in the squad was high on something; and they were high because they were either paranoid or bored.

    Jim’s squad commander, Lt. Frank Sweeney, was one of those high because they were paranoid.  He sniffed cocaine to stay alert.  He didn’t know a side effect of cocaine was paranoia.  So twenty years ago, during the war, when Sweeney heard a rustle in the brush outside of camp, he open fired.  He tagged a wild boar, and blew the boar to pieces when it came running scared through the camp.  Why the wild boar ran towards the camp, God knows.  Walter Cannon might have called it a glitch in the basic, hardwired survival instincts of “fight or flight.”  The boar somehow combined the two options into one and ran menacingly towards it’s doom. 
    Darwin might have explained the event as an example of natural selection. 
    The boar was selected to get blown to pieces.
    It was selected to get blown to pieces by a man and an M60 Machine gun- the gun, of which, was ironically nicknamed “The Pig.”  The man was ultimately nicknamed “unfit for military service,” and relieved of his duties. 
    At the time of the boar’s death, Jim was smoking Marijuana.  He was smoking marijuana because he was one of those men in the squad who were bored; and he was bored because he hadn’t been given the chance to blow apart a Viet-Cong like his commander had just blown apart the boar.  As Jim watched the boar explode, a joint dangling from his mouth, he fell into a trance.  He had never seen a living creature die of such brutal force before.  He was instantly humbled by the power of the M60. 
    As he sat on the wooden stool, outside the cabin they called their housing barracks, Jim got to wondering.  He wondered if the “The Pig” M60 machine gun could do the same thing to a human being, as it did to the boar.  He didn’t think human parts were all that different from boar parts.  Human parts just took a different shape.  Jim walked into the cabin and picked up the second M60 his squad had in possession.  He emerged, tucked the butt against his shoulder and looked down the barrel.  At the end of the barrel, aligned in the sights, Jim held his squad commander.  Lt. Frank Sweeney stood over the largest part of the boar still intact.  He was nudging the chunk of torso with his boot. 
    Sweeney looked up and saw the bloodshot eyes of his men upon him. 
    Sweeney laughed. 
    He laughed because he didn’t know what else to do.  Oops. 
    The other men in the squad began to laugh with him.  They didn’t know what to do either. 
    The only person who wasn’t laughing was Jim.  Jim’s head spun from the marijuana.  He found himself angry, then sad; then angry again.  The sadness, he knew, was for the boar.  The boar didn’t know any better.  It just did as it was programmed to do- and it got killed.  That meant the anger was for Sweeney, because Sweeney, a higher-thinking human, should have known better.  He mistook the boar for a person.  Well, what if it had been a person?  Would he be laughing then? 
    Jim wrapped his finger around the M60’s trigger.  He thought he could make the M60 laugh.  The M60 could convulse and make bursts of noise too.   
    Sweeney noticed Jim, the second M60 pointed in his direction.  Sweeney laughed even harder. 
    “For Christ’s sake Fischer, relax!” he said.  “It was only a boar!” 
     The other men in the squad buckled over and held their guts.  Jim bounced the sight of the M60 around to each of them.  He didn’t know what they were laughing at.  He could blow them away at any second.  He could make them die happy. 
    His trigger finger tightened; his hand started to shake.  He tried to tighten more; his hand shook harder.  A tear rolled down his cheek.   
    Sweeney noticed.  “What’s the matter Jim?” he yelled.  “You have some kind of weird love for boars?” 
    As much as Jim wanted, he couldn’t pull the trigger.  He made out the blurry shapes at the end of the M60 to be Mullaney, Wilson, and Leroy.  He bounced to Sweeney again, then Campbell and Morris.  They still laughed. 
    Jim blinked and cleared the water from his eyes.  The sight of the M60 settled on a woman in a black dress.  He recognized her as his ex-wife, Susan.  How did she get to Vietnam?  She mouthed the words “What are you doing?”  Her eyes said she was angry.   
    The trees of the Vietnam jungle became men with black suits and women with black dresses.  The barracks behind Jim became a mausoleum.  A priest faced Jim, asking him, “Are you ready?.. To say a few words?”
    Back to reality.
    Jim remembered where he was.  He put down his imaginary M60 and walked over to the podium. 
    Between he and Susan, suspended on pulleys over an open grave, laid his son‘s casket.  Inside of that casket, laid his son’s dead body.  His son’s name was Matthew; and Matthew had been killed in the war in Iraq. 
    Jim cleared his throat and prepared himself for what he was about to say.  It wasn’t very heartfelt, what came out.  It wasn’t one’s typical eulogy, but it was the truth.  He said:
        Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later. 
An almost uniform gasp emerged from the crown, followed by murmurs.  Susan nearly fainted.

*  *  *

    The reception for Matthew Fischer’s funeral was held at his mother, Susan’s house, mainly because Susan’s house had been Matthew’s primary place of residence ever since Susan and Jim got divorced twelve years ago.  Her house was the family house, which Jim gave her- albeit for Matthew’s sake- in the divorce.  Susan had gotten custody of Matthew, who was ten at the time.  Jim moved to a two bedroom shit-hole on the edge of town and was granted weekend visitation rights on the first and third weekends of the month.  The shit-hole was not a shit-hole by appearance, but a shit-hole because the septic tank was corroded and leaky and in need of replacement.  Neighbors complained and the township asked he get the tank fixed, but Jim didn’t have the money nor the care to get the job done.  He had lived in worse conditions in Vietnam.  Eventually, he came to get used to the smell and didn’t even notice it. 
    Jim sat quietly in the corner of the living room that used to be his.  He observed the décor- the crown mouldings at the ceiling, the floral-pattern wallpaper and the new-Victorian furniture.  Susan had changed a lot.  She was able.  She always had been the breadwinner; yet for some reason, the court still had Jim pay child support.  It didn’t make sense. 
    Susan made for a good host, considering her son had just died.  As her friends and family offered their condolences, she shut them up with pastries and hors d'oeuvres.  Few offered their condolences to Jim.  He supposed they still were still upset about his eulogy.  For all Jim cared they could <content removed by editor>.
    Everyone has their own way of mourning. 
    Jim watched, from across the room, one of those who had approached him, to condole.  He was a young man in military (full dress) uniform.  Jim had never seen him before.  At the moment, the young man stood in the hallway, between the living room and kitchen.  He admired the family photos on the wall. 
    “How did you know my son?” Jim had asked. 
    “I fought with your son in Iraq,” the buzz-cutted young man responded.  He said Matthew was “a good soldier.”
    “I suppose,” Jim had said.  Jim didn’t know what a good soldier was. 
    The young soldier in full dress was Cpl. Lance Tuttle.  Cpl. Tuttle lied when he said he fought with Matthew in Iraq.  He had never been to Iraq.  He had never been outside the state of North Carolina, for that matter.  And while he was in the army, it was a stretch to consider him a soldier. 
    Lance Tuttle and Matthew Fischer met during basic training at Fort Briar in Hollingswood, North Carolina.  These were the circumstances of that meeting: 
    Lance was in the mess hall, waiting in line for a sandwich.  Matthew was in line behind him.  Both waited patiently, exhausted from morning drills.  When Lance reached the sandwich-maker lady, he ordered turkey on whole wheat with American cheese, lettuce, tomato, and mayo.  He wished for that sandwich to be toasted.  His wish was granted, and as he waited for his sandwich to toast, he overheard Matthew place his order. 
    Matthew asked for pita bread, and then asked the sandwich-maker lady to put tuna-fish on that pita bread.  Lance turned to Matthew, as the lady made the sandwich. 
    “Are you Jewish?”  he asked. 
    “No,” Matthew said.  “I just like pita bread.” 
    And that was the only time the two had spoken to each other.  Lance didn’t even remember Matthew when he saw the pictures in the family home, at Matthew’s funeral.  He was at the home on special assignment, but by no means was the assignment special.  (It could very well have been considered punishment.)  The assignment was imaginary- made-up by Tuttle’s commanding officer for the sole purpose of getting Tuttle out of the officer’s hair.  Tuttle had accidentally shot this officer during basic training, and was assigned to the officer’s aide in reparation.  He shot the officer during target practice, after he had underestimated the kickback of the M60 machine gun.  The gun had jerked wildly in Tuttle’s hands.  It sent bits of hot metal through the air as soldiers dropped to the ground for cover.  One of those bits of hot metal hit the C.O. in the thigh.  It tore through muscle and fragmented bone.  It missed the femoral artery by one inch.  Lance Tuttle failed basic training. 
    The imaginary assignment Lance was on, while unofficial, would not have been a bad idea, had anyone else but Lance been “assigned” to it.  Lance was told to keep an eye on soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.  He was to observe them, offsite, for signs of PTSD.  He was no psychologist.  The army had perfectly adept psychologists for the job, but as was said, Lance’s C.O. needed some excuse to get him out of the office.  He gave Lance the times and addresses of funeral services for returning soldiers K.I.A..  Other soldiers were sure to be at the services, for Lance to observe.  Lance was to talk to them and make sure they were “okay.”  He did, and frequently came back with reports that the soldiers were “sad.”  He was told by his C.O. whether additional observation of the “sad” soldiers was necessary (or not). 
    At Matthew Fischer’s service, Lance observed some strange behavior from a retired man in uniform.  The man had been pointing an imaginary gun at several attendees of the service.  The man was the deceased soldier’s father.  Lance reported the behavior and was told “further observation necessary.”

*  *  *

    Susan Hopkins called Jim on the phone, three days after Matthew’s service.  She wanted to talk about their son.  She said she didn’t see how they couldn’t talk about it.  Sure, they were divorced, and Matthew had been the only thing that kept them in contact those twelve years since, but he was their son.  They created him. 
    “I guess what I’m trying to say,” she said, “is I need closure.  I need to know we did good for Matthew.” 
    Jim couldn’t refuse. 
    They arranged to meet in town, at a diner, for lunch.  Jim arrived first and took seat in a booth.  He absently sipped coffee while he waited.  An hour could have passed, before Susan arrived, and Jim would not have been able to distinguish it from a few minutes.  As he stared at the empty booth across from him, he drifted away from reality.  Only when Susan sat down, in what had actually been ten minutes, did he return.  He stood up to be chivalrous, realized the moment for chivalry had passed, and sat back down. 
    “Hi,” he said. 
    “Hi,” she said. 
    The waitress came to get Susan’s drink order.  She ordered coffee, as well; and as the waitress went to get it, the two exes looked at the menu. 
    “What are you going to get?” Susan asked. 
    “I don’t know.” Jim said. 
    “Oh.  I thought you would have decided already.” 
    “No,” Jim said.  He looked at the menu, the print of which had shifted into an outline of North and South Vietnam.  Within the outline were the names of cities and towns, marked with X’s and arrows. 
    The waitress returned with Susan’s coffee and took the food order.  To eat, Jim ordered a tuna sandwich on pita bread.  Susan ordered a chicken Caesar wrap.  The man in the booth behind Jim ordered a turkey sandwich on whole wheat with lettuce, tomato, and mayonnaise. 
    “You know, I don’t blame you for Matthew’s death,” Susan started.  “I just wish you would have told him it wasn’t all they made it out to be.”  She was talking about the military.  “It” was the service.  “They” were the military personnel- recruitment, Jim supposed.   
    “I mean, after what it did to you, and all,” she added. 
    Jim thought for a second.  He couldn’t remember what “it” did to him. 
    “What did it do to me?” he asked. 
    “Oh Jim, don’t act like you don’t know!”  Susan sounded exasperated.  “We worked so hard to get past all that.”
    Jim nodded, though he had no idea what she was talking about. 
    “I just thought he would have known better… Maybe he was too young to realize.  Who knows… poor thing.” 
    “Yeah,” Jim said. 
    “Did he ever come to you?  To talk about it?” 
    Jim didn’t recall.  He suddenly had a feeling there was a lot he didn’t recall.  A lot was déjà vu.  One thing that wasn’t déjà vu was the conversation.  He and Susan had never spoken about Matthew’s decision to join the military before, while Matthew was living.  Jim wondered, why now? 
    “It came to a shock to me too,” Susan continued.  “He never seemed to have an interest in the military.  He went to college for engineering, for Christ’s sake.  Something must have bitten him after graduation.  I’m sure of it.  Probably that damn factory, where he worked.  He didn’t belong in that place.” 
    Jim could have commented, at this point, (the factory was the place he had worked for twenty years, after all- after the war, to support his family) but Jim was gone.  He sat under a tree in the Vietnam jungle.  He listened to his old comrades argue over their proper coordinates on the map.  In the diner, the waitress came to the table with a coffee decanter in hand.  She asked if he or Susan would like a refill.  Susan got one.  Jim swatted away at mosquitoes that buzzed about his face.  The waitress took his gesture as a “no.”
    Susan went on talking:  “Well, I suppose it will get better with time.  As long as I know I did everything I possibly could for Matthew, while he was with us.” 
    She looked up at Jim, who still wasn’t back from Vietnam.  He watched a centipede crawl through the wet compost on the Vietnamese jungle floor.  Susan picked up the centipede tapped it- what was actually a fork- on it’s head.  Jim got sucked out of the jungle, flew across the Pacific Ocean, and found himself back in the small diner in Hollingswood.  Susan sat across from him, her eyes glassy. 
    “We raised a good boy, didn’t we?”  she asked.  A tear rolled down her left cheek. 
    “Yes,” Jim said.  “Yes we did.” 
    As they left the diner, before they parted for their vehicles, Susan asked Jim one more question. 
    “Do you need anything?.. Any more medication?”
    “No,” Jim said.  The orange bottle of pills in his medicine cabinet was half empty. 
    “I can write you something if you’d like.” 
    “No, that’s fine.” 
    “You should really see Dr. Phillips though.  You never know how traumas can affect psychoses like yours.” 
    Jim nodded.  He remembered, then, how he met his ex-wife.  He was sprawled out on a brown leather lounge chair at the Fort Briar psychology clinic.  She was his therapist.

*  *  *

    A thousand miles away, across the Atlantic Ocean, bombs were falling from the sky onto buildings and houses in Iraq.  Other bombs were falling from the sky onto buildings and houses in Afghanistan.  People were dying left and right, getting blown to pieces or crushed under falling rubble.  Some of these dying people were deemed “bad,” by the powers that dropped the bombs; some of these people would have been deemed “good,” had they not been in the wrong place at the wrong time.  They became simple “casualties of war.”  The powers that dropped the bombs were called the Americans.  They did their best to target only the “bad guys,” but the “bad guys” looked an awful lot like “good guys;” and when the American soldiers on the ground gave the guys who all looked alike the benefit of the doubt, many times the American soldiers themselves got blown up.  It was much easier to not trust anybody- to generalize and stereotype and not give anyone who dressed differently the benefit of the doubt.  Many more lives were lost this way, on both sides of the battle. 
    While people were dying in this particular part of the world, people in other parts of the world were dancing.  They were dressed-up in designer clothing, drinking alcohol, laughing, and having a free and ignorant good time at the bars and the clubs.  Boxes were pumping out sounds that drowned all rational thought; and animal instincts were allowed to kick in.
    In one small town of Hollingswood, North Carolina, United States of America, a woman named Susan Hopkins, who used to be named Susan Fischer, was popping little blue pills into her mouth to help her fall asleep and become ignorant to the troubles in her life.  In that same town, at the opposite end, Jim Fischer was flushing little white pills down the toilet to become less ignorant.  He hadn’t taken the pills, as he was supposed to, since his son was killed by a bad guy in Iraq.  A pile of military memorabilia sat on his living room floor.  Next to it was a can of lighter fluid. 
    Outside of the Jim Fischer residence, across the street, was a pick-up truck.  Inside of that pick-up truck was Lance Tuttle.  He was dressed in military fatigues and wore a fake mustache.  Through binoculars, he watched the close-curtained windows of Jim Fischer’s house.  He was convinced Jim was up to something.  He had followed Jim home from a diner, earlier, and Jim had stopped in an Army/Navy store.  He bought an  excessive amount of road flares.

*  * *

    Lance woke in his car at 5:30 in the morning.  It was still dark, and it took him a moment to get coordinated.  When he realized he had fallen asleep on the job, he cursed himself and picked up his binoculars.  The curtains on Fischer’s windows were still drawn, but behind- through the thin material- Lance saw a flickering light.  At first he thought it was the television.  Then he saw the flame jump up the curtain.  It ate away at the fabric and revealed an inferno inside.  Lance jumped from his truck and ran to the house.  When he reached the front door, he turned the handle, found it was unlocked, and let himself in. 
    “Fischer!” he yelled.  “Mr. Fischer are you in here?”
    The smoke was thick.  He breathed some in, unthinking, and felt it, heavy in his chest.  His lungs constricted to force the smoke out.  He coughed and sucked more smoke into his lungs.  He coughed some more.   He could barely see a thing, aside from the orange flames dancing in the living room. 
    “Fischer!” he gasped.  “Fischer!” 
    No response. 
    Lance reached the pile in center of the living room.  Through the smoke, by the light of the flame, he was able to make out some of the burning items.  One was a wooden crate, engraved “U.S. Army.”  The flames had blackened half of it.  There were pictures and books.  One of the books, Lance noticed, was Sun Tzu’s The Art of War.  A globe was also present, the plastic of which bubbled and melted away, into itself.
    The couch and end tables were on fire.  So was the coffee table.  Lance carefully stepped around the inferno and proceeded to the hallway at the back of the house, where the bedrooms were. 
    “Fischer!”
    His airways produced mucous, to help pass what was suffocating him; but what suffocated him was smoke, and the smoke kept coming.  His airways produced more mucous, which clotted and suffocated him more.  He coughed and gagged to the point he thought his lungs might explode. 
    In the back bedroom- Jim Fischer’s bedroom, Lance expected to find Jim asleep.  There was no one.  Only a bed and a six-drawer chest.  Across the hall, the second bedroom was better furnished.  It was made for a child.  Stuffed animals sat atop a small dresser, the bed was made with baseball sheets and bedspread.  Still, no Jim.  Lance turned to exit, became lightheaded, and passed out on the carpeted floor.

*  *  *

    Meanwhile, Jim was afoot, halfway across town, and heading towards Fort Briar.  He wore a fishing vest over fatigues, army boots, and camouflage cap.  Between the vest and the fatigues were the sticks of road flare he had purchased after lunch.  They were taped and tied with wire, to look like dynamite.
    Jim was off his medication, and never felt better.  The colors cast by the rising sun were brighter.  The sounds of the birds were clear and melodious.  The air breathed crisp and clean.  It could have just been the morning- “Spring” could have been in the air.  But Jim felt happy for the first time in a long time.  He finally felt he had direction.
    He reached the fence that set off the thousand acres of Fort Briar from the rest of the world.  As he walked alongside it, two fire engines flew past in the opposite direction. 
    The firemen found Lance face down, where he had fallen, in Jim’s house.  By that time, the roof over the living room had burned through and partially collapsed; and allowed for some ventilation.  The paramedics determined the ventilation was probably what saved Lance’s life.  They successfully administered CPR and followed with oxygen, but Lance continued to slip.  His airways were blocked by black tar and mucous- an equivalent of five years smoking in what had only been thirty minutes.  What really brought him back was the adrenaline shot.  Upon reception, Lance’s stomach convulsed.  He sat up and vomited into his oxygen mask; pulled the mask off, and vomited again on the ambulance floor.  But boy, did he feel better.  He remembered where he was and what he had been doing. 
    “Fischer!” he cried out.  “Where’s Fischer?” 
    The young EMT, who had begun to strap Lance in for the ride, sighed and muttered.  He said, “I don’t know,” but really meant I don’t care.  He was tired of cleaning up vomit and blood and fecal matter, just because he was new on the squad.  He stopped strapping and bent down to wipe some of the vomit off his shoe. 
    A fireman, who stood nearby, overheard Lance’s cry.  The fireman’s face was black because that was the color of his skin.  It had nothing to do with the smoke and the soot from the fire he had been fighting.  He walked to the rear of the ambulance with his helmet under-arm. 
    “Hey don’t worry bout Fischer my man,” he said.  “Wasn’t in there.  Matter of fact, I think I saw him heading through town, as we drove over here… Can’t be sure, but-”
    “Where!?” Lance yelled, coughed. 
    “Heading towards Briar, it seemed.  Dressed in camo.  Better not be going too far, he’s got some esplainin to do bout this…”
    Before the black firefighter could finish, Lance had unbuckled himself from the stretcher and was headed for the front of the ambulance.  The driver’s seat was empty- the driver, of which, stood outside in conduction of a unidirectional conversation with an attractive female firefighter.  He spoke about how many lives he had saved in his two-year career.  (It was negligible; impossible to determine.)  The female firefighter was unimpressed, albeit amused.  The driver was obviously drunk and had no right to be behind the wheel of an ambulance. 
    “Should you be driving this thing, right now?” she asked.
    “Oh yeah, this thing,” he said.  He placed his hand on the side-mirror of the vehicle and leaned into it.  “There’s nobody here knows how to handle a vehicle like this here like I do.” 
    Just then, the ambulance pulled away.  The driver fell over and hit the pavement with a thud!  He was instantly knocked unconscious.  The young EMT in back was thrown from the vehicle in somersault form and landed face-down on his stomach.  He stood up, even more irritated than he had been before, with the vomit.  He walked in circles and flailed his arms in the air. 
    “That’s it!  I quit!” he yelled.  “I QUIT!” 
    The black firefighter just kept repeating “oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no,” and shook his head back and forth. 
    The attractive female firefighter went to the radio to call it in. 
    Fischer reached the entry gate of Fort Briar around 7:45am.  He walked up to the entry kiosk and showed the soldier inside his military ID.  The soldier let him through with no questions asked.  He pointed Jim in the direction of the recruitment office.
    Fort Briar was in the process of waking for the day.  Vehicles filled the parking lot and spat out servicemen and servicewomen.  The service people walked to their respective destinations and prepared for the work ahead.  It was structure and order at it’s finest.  A man-made nature.
    Briar’s senior recruitment officer walked, limping with a cane, from his car to the entryway of building C.  He carried a suitcase in his free hand.  His uniform was decorated with medals and emblems that spelled out IMPORTANT.  He had no idea a crazed veteran waited in his office.  The crazed veteran had no idea the recruitment officer was his former commanding officer in Vietnam, Lt. Frank Sweeney. 
    “Well I’ll be damned,” Sweeney said.  He had entered his office and saw Jim looking at a framed picture from his desk.  It was a group shot of the old troop in Vietnam.  Everyone was in the photo, including Jim.  They smiled like they were on vacation. 
    “Yes, probably” said Jim.  He smiled, like in the picture. 
    Sweeney extended a hand, but Jim did not receive it.  Jim put the picture back down on the desk and turned to face the wall.  There, he scanned the other hanging pictures.  Nobody in the pictures looked familiar.  He assumed they were just ghosts, used for decoration. 
    “So what brings you here?” asked Sweeney.  He moved around, behind his desk, and took a seat in the power position. 
    “I thought you were relieved of your duty,” said Jim. 
    “I was, I was,” Sweeney nodded.  “Had a bad coke problem, got help, found Jesus… I appealed and they reinstated me as a drill instructor, then a recruitment officer after a little accident there left me with this limp.”
    “That was easy,” Jim said. 
    “Actually it wasn’t… I…”  Sweeney was speechless. 
    Jim decided he should answer Sweeney’s original question.  “Well, I was just doing a little thinking about my son,” he said.  “and I don’t know what he died for.” 
    Sweeney remained speechless.  He told recruits all the time what they’d be fighting for.  He never thought he’d have to explain to anyone what a soldier had died for, but perhaps the two were the same.  He said:
    “Well, I like to think it was for democracy- for peace and a civilized world.” 
    Jim nodded, silent.  He took in the response.  Sweeney added, “You know I’m sorry-”
    Jim interrupted. 
    “I don’t buy it,” he said, “with everything we know from history, how can anyone believe in peace through war?”  He sat down on a couch against the wall, leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees.  He held a distant gaze.  He was deep in thought. 
    “Gotta break some eggs if you wanna make an omelet,” Sweeney joked.  Jim didn‘t laugh.  Perhaps that wasn‘t appropriate … “Not everyone knows what we know.” 
    Jim perked up.  “How do we make them know?”
    “We give them the environment, the tools, to learn.”
    “Is that what we’re doing, over there, in the middle east?
    “Yes… I think so.” 
    “You believe they want to listen?”
    “I don’t know.”  Sweeney thought.  “I guess it’s more important that the information is there, whether they want to listen or not.” 
    “But if they don’t want to listen, then what’s the point? 
    “We wait until they come around.”
    “By sacrificing American lives?”
    “If that’s what it takes.” 
    “It’s not fair.”
    “I know.” 
    “Who gave us this responsibility?”
    “I don’t know… maybe history, our reputation.”
    “It’s not fair.” 
    “I know.” 
    Jim’s mind flooded with information.  Questions and answers, new perspectives.  He processed the data and became more at-ease, like the hand of a C.O. had been lowered in salute; and the hand pulled the strings of unlit light bulbs in the process.  Jim hoped his son, Matthew, knew the risks of his service before he enlisted.  He hoped Matthew had his reasons for joining.  Matthew was young, but he was a smart boy.  Smarter than his father, Jim thought. 
    Ignorance is bliss, then it kills you.
    A faint siren could be heard, wailing in the distance.  Sweeney spoke of giving lost young men purpose and direction, but Jim had stopped listening.  Another hallucination was in effect.  Jim’s moment of clarity, over.  Gunfire erupted outside, on base, and Jim didn’t flinch.  Sweeney ran to the office window and had a look.  He saw the source of the siren, an ambulance, break through the gate at Briar’s entrance.  The armed guard, who had let Jim in, fired at the tires with his standard issue Beretta. 
    Jim’s mind flew across the Atlantic Ocean to Iraq.  There, he became an invisible spectator.  On a small army base, in the desert, he watched a group of American soldiers play football in a central common area.  The area was surrounded by trailers, small commercial buildings, and large green tents.  The base itself was fenced in, cut off from the world, like Fort Briar in the US.  The soldiers playing football kicked up dry sand and dirt as they scuffled for the ball.  A dust cloud formed around them, and for a moment, Jim could not see through it.  He turned and looked towards the entrance of the base.   
    The base was connected to the desolate Iraqi infrastructure by a single road at the  west.  This was the only entrance by which vehicles could pass- reserved for scheduled deliveries and military personnel only.  It was guarded at all times by two armed soldiers.  They watched for suspicious vehicles and made sure none turned off the crossroad, onto the road that led to the base.  At the moment, they watched a lone ambulance, heading north on the crossroad.  They watched with binoculars.  It too kicked up dust from the earth; and threw the dust out in a cloud behind. 
    The dust in the football game cleared and Jim was able to see the soldiers spread out, ready to receive the ball.  The offensive players wore shirts.  Defense wore none, their bodies fit and tanned by the desert sun.  Jim saw the quarterback, a young man with thick-rimmed glasses.  The glasses were held on by a strap that tied at the back of the his head.  His eyes darted left and right, in search of an open teammate.  He didn’t see the shirtless player break through the offensive line and wade through the dust.  The quarterback was sacked, but held onto the ball.  The shirtless sacker stood up, flexed, and roared with satisfaction.  He then turned and helped up his victim. 
    “Come on Matt!  What are you doing?” said one of the shirts, clearly disappointed. 
    “Sorry,” Matt said.  He stood up and dusted himself off.  “I didn’t see him.”
    The skins celebrated while the shirts huddled.  Jim watched- the invisible spectator.  He watched proudly as his son, the determined QB, gave out instructions for the next play.  But before the huddle broke naturally, the sound of gunfire- out at the west gate- broke it.  The players’ heads turned and saw an ambulance speeding down the road towards base.  The two guards fired at it with automatic machine guns.  The ambulance kept coming.  It broke through the gate and headed for the common area.  The football-playing soldiers scattered and ran for their gear. 
    Jim watched Matthew run into one of the surrounding green tents.  Several others followed.  Matthew emerged first, machine gun in hand.  He open-fired on the ambulance and put holes in the dirty, white-metal side.  The ambulance turned and drove straight for the tent- straight for Matthew.  Matthew kept firing.  He aimed at the windshield, which cracked and spider-webbed out as the bullets broke through.  The driver had ducked behind the steering wheel, unharmed.  Matthew paused with the gun and yelled into the tent, “Out the other end!”
    Jim saw the other soldiers leave from opposite ends of the tent.  They too open-fired on the ambulance.  Matthew dove aside as the ambulance ran straight into the tent, collapsing it.  The ambulance moved under a sheet of green, like a ghost.  It circled around aimlessly, to head back towards Matthew, but crashed into a trailer on the way.  Matthew stood up.  He was closest to the damage; and moved slowly towards the wreck.  The others came behind. 
    The tarp of the tent had slid back to reveal the smoking front of the ambulance.  Behind Matthew, a soldier yelled, “Matt, I don’t-”
    But the soldier couldn’t finish his sentence.  The ambulance exploded.  Shrapnel flew out in all directions.  A piece hit Matthew in the stomach and sent him to the ground.  Jim opened his mouth to scream, but no sound came out. 
    At Fort Briar, soldiers were in the process of restraining the man who recklessly drove an ambulance onto base a minute earlier.  The man’s skin was darkened from soot and he coughed as he spoke.  It was easy for the soldiers to mistake him, Lance Tuttle, as a terrorist.  He struggled, on the ground, until one of the soldiers hit him on the back of the head with a rifle butt.  Lance fell limp. 
    Sweeney watched from his window and spoke emptily to Jim, who’s mind was overseas. 
    “You know, I feel bad for this kid,” Sweeney said.  “No matter how much he tries, the army just can’t give him the guidance he needs.  His father was killed in Vietnam.  He’s all his manic-depressive mother has left…. You know he actually reminds me quite a bit how you were, back in the day.”
    Jim couldn’t listen.  His eye’s rolled to the back of his head as his mind came back to his body, exhausted by what it had seen.  His legs gave out and he fell, unconscious, to the floor.

* * *

    “Jim….Jim!” 
    Susan leaned over Jim’s body, which laid on a hospital bed at the army medical center.  His eyes opened slightly, then closed, hurt by the overhead lights.  He opened them again, this time a little more.  He blinked and saw his ex-wife. 
    “Where am I?” he groaned. 
    “You’re at the hospital.”
    “Why?” he said.
    “You blacked out, Jim.  The doctor says you haven’t been taking your medication.” 
    “I saw Matthew,” Jim said, groggy.  “I went to Briar… they’re just kids and they take them.” 
    “Shh, shh.”  Susan whispered.  “I know, Jim.  Relax.”  Her voice was calm, soothing for a change.  She ran her fingers though Jim’s hair.  After all those years divorced, she found it strange, how she could still care for Jim.  Perhaps she felt sorry for him, or guilty, having been unable to help him after the war.  He was cute.  He asked her out after every session; she, refusing because it was “unprofessional.”  Then she transferred him to Dr. Phillips.  She said yes. 
    “Just tell me one thing,” she said.  “Why did you have all those road flares strapped to your chest?” 
    Jim turned his head away, ashamed. 
    “Jim?” 
    He brought his head back, brought his eyes to Susan’s.
    “In case they didn’t listen,” he said.